Cyber Crime

Pierluigi Paganini January 16, 2017
Weak passwords are still the root cause of data breaches

Key findings of a new study conducted by Keeper Security that analyzed 10 million hacked accounts from breached data dumps for the most popular passwords. Users’ bad habits are still one of the biggest problems for the IT industry, weak passwords and their reuse on multiple websites every day potentially expose a billion users to cyber […]

Pierluigi Paganini January 16, 2017
New campaign leverages RIG Exploit kit to deliver the Cerber Ransomware

Experts from Heimdal Security warned of a spike in cyber attacks leveraging the popular RIG Exploit kit to deliver the Cerber Ransomware. The RIG exploit kit is even more popular in the criminal ecosystem, a few days ago security experts at Heimdal Security warned of a spike in cyber attacks leveraging the popular Neutrino and […]

Pierluigi Paganini January 15, 2017
Ploutus-D, a new variant of Ploutus ATM malware spotted in the wild

Security experts from FireEye have spotted a new variant of the infamous Ploutus ATM malware that infected systems in Latin America. Ploutus is one of the sophisticated ATM malware that was first discovered in Mexico back in 2013. The threat allows crooks to steal cash from ATMs using either an external keyboard attached to the machine […]

Pierluigi Paganini January 14, 2017
Hackers that hit MongoDB installs now switch on exposed Elasticsearch clusters

The hackers that targeted MongoDB installations with ransom attacks now switch on the exposed Elasticsearch clusters with a similar tactic. A few days ago I reported the news of a string of cyber attacks against MongoDB databases. Hackers broke into unprotected MongoDB databases, stealing their content, and asking for a ransom to return the data. […]

Pierluigi Paganini January 13, 2017
ShadowBrokers exits releasing another arsenal of tools to hack Windows

The ShadowBrokers hacking group that broke into the NSA arsenal and stole its hacking tools is signing off, leaving a gift to the security community. The mysterious hacking group calling themselves “The Shadow Brokers” has apparently decided to put an end to their failed attempts to sell exploits and hacking tools they claimed to have […]

Pierluigi Paganini January 13, 2017
Two observations about the Italian EyePyramid espionage campaign

Let’s try to analyze some facts about the Italian EyePyramid espionage campaign. Prof. Corrado Aaron Visaggio helped us in this difficult task. The Italian EyePyramid espionage campaign raised to me two simple questions: (i) Are the criminals geniuses or dummies? (ii) How can an old, known, easy-to-detect malware infect so many machines belonging to different […]

Pierluigi Paganini January 13, 2017
Israeli mobile phone data extraction company Cellebrite was hacked

The Israeli mobile phone data extraction company Cellebrite was hacked by unknown hackers that provide the 900GB database to Motherboard. An irony of fate, the Israeli mobile phone data extraction company Cellebrite was hacked. The company went in the headlines in the dispute between Apple and the FBI in the case of the San Bernardino shooter’s […]

Pierluigi Paganini January 12, 2017
EyePyramid – Police arrests two for hacking into emails of politicians, lawyers, entrepreneurs, and masons

Two Italian siblings have been arrested by Italian Police and they were charged with a long-running cyber espionage campaign. This is a very intriguing story, two Italian siblings Giulio and Francesca Maria Occhionero gave been arrested by Italian Police and they were charged with a long-running cyber espionage campaign that targeted Italian politicians, lawyers, entrepreneurs, and masons. The […]

Pierluigi Paganini January 12, 2017
In 2016, these are the four ways how bots altered history

2016 was the biggest year by far for all sorts of bots. From Chatbots to bad bots, the past year was eventful to say the least. With more than 980+ cyber security breaches across all online businesses and 35 million accounts exposed. Yahoo! In a 2016 report, disclosed that more than 1 billion accounts have […]

Pierluigi Paganini January 12, 2017
Spora Ransomware allows victims to pay for immunity from future attacks

 Security experts from Emsisoft spotted a new strain of malware, the Spora ransomware, that allows potential victims to pay for immunity from future attacks. Security experts from Emsisoft spotted a new strain of ransomware dubbed Spora that implements a singular extortion mechanism, it allows potential victims to pay for immunity from future attacks. According to the experts, […]